Finally built my grader

[djw250]

Well, after about 2 years of procrastination, I finally built myself a grader. I have about $200 of materials in it, plus some stuff I already had and scavenged. I think it turned out pretty good. If you are interested in the build, I have quite a few pictures at Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket

Here are a couple of pictures.

 

[Diamondpilot]

Very nice work.

Chris

 

[jcaron2]

Wow! Looks really nice.

 

[Mark_in_NH]

VERY Nice indeed !!!!
Let us know how it works. Some action photos would be great.

 

[nunyabinis]

Awesome!!!


I'm gonna have to get off my backside and start putting mine together. I've had the metal now for about six month.

 

[carpenter383]

Nice work! Just curious, are the bottom of the blades about even with the bottom of the runners or? How did you decide what angle to set the blades at?

 

[djw250]

Nunya, don't feel bad, I had my metal for almost 2 years before I built mine.

Carpenter, the front blade is 3/4" below the skids, and the back is level with the bottom of the skids. If you have it level, the front blade digs in, but you can adjust the top link and make it pretty much level out. I set the blades at a 5 degree angle. I decided to do this based on borrowing a commercial grader to try. The blades on it were at 10 degrees. If all I did was grade the road, that would be fine, but I plan to do quite a bit of dirt leveling also, and I felt 10 degrees moved too much material right to left. 5 degrees was my compromise.

Mark, no action shots yet, but here's one of the road after I used the grader on it.

 

[jenkinsph]

Nice work on the grader, you will find many uses for it. About the angle, I gave this alot of thought and built mine with 0 angle, reason being the vast majority of my use is for leveling fields and lawn areas. I did not feel that moving the material sideways was helpful in my case. If I do change mine I will make it hydraulically adjustable.

 

[Tig]

Very nice work on the grader. Puts my poor boy mod to shame.
Do I see that right? It looks like your blades are curved. I know that is one thing that I could have done better to get the gravel to tumble and mix a bit more.

 

[djw250]

Tig, the blades are used motor grader cutting edges that I got from a guy I work with. I cut them down with a torch to the width that I needed, and yes, they are slightly curved and very heavy.

Jenkinsph, I thought a lot about the blade angle, finally deciding on the 5 degrees. I think it is a good compromise because it doesn't seem to move the material much, but may keep the rocks from heading downslope toward the ditch when I grade the road.